I love great writing.
Paul Ford has written an article for NYMag that definitely qualifies as great writing (like just about everything he writes). In Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out, Paul eloquently clarifies how most Instagram users feel about the Facebook acquisition and provides a great deal of clarity in the process.
There are so many gems in the piece, but here’s a little sample.
So if you’re an Instagram user, you’ve been picking up on all of the cues about how important you are, how valuable you are to Instagram. Then along comes Facebook, the great alien presence that just hovers over our cities, year after year, as we wait and fear. You turn on the television and there it is, right above the Empire State Building, humming. And now a hole has opened up on its base and it has dumped a billion dollars into a public square — which turned out to not be public, but actually belongs to a few suddenly-very-rich dudes. You can’t blame users for becoming hooting primates when a giant spaceship dumps a billion dollars out of its money hole. It’s like the monolith in the movie 2001 appeared filled with candy and a sign on the front that said “NO CANDY FOR YOU.”
A great read. [via Ftrain]
Oh, and if you like this article, be sure to check out The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which I’ve linked to in the past.